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Help Free Euna Lee and Laura Ling

Do you know about Euna Lee and Laura Ling? The two journalists were
investigating human rights abuses of North Korean women when they were
arrested by North Korean authorities. The two were recently sentenced
to 12 years hard labor for "illegal entry" and "hostile acts."

Freedom Watch

FREEDOM WATCH is information pertaining to government abuse of power, trashing of the Constitution, illegal immigration, 2nd Amendment, political correctness run amok, etc.It is FREE and sent to you via E-mail.To subscribe send an e-mail to: FreedomWatch-subscribe@topica.com

"Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake,
that his life and his work do not belong to him, but belong to society, that the
only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society
may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be
its own tribal, collective good."

Troy Davis decision postponed! Your help still needed.

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court delayed a decision on whether to grant Troy Davis an appeal until after it returns from recess in September.
The court's decision (or non-decision) should be taken as a good sign.
It gives us hope that at least some Supreme Court Justices may finally
be waking up to the strong claims of innocence in this case and want to
take more time to weigh the facts.

We are convinced that if the justices agree to hold a hearing and allow all evidence to be weighed,
then they will come to see what we have known all along – the pieces
just don't add up. When Davis was sentenced to death for the 1989
shooting of a police officer in Savannah, there was an absence of any
physical evidence against him. Furthermore, the majority of witnesses who testified against him then, have now recanted or changed their stories altogether.

Troy's case continues to inspire the support of millions of activists and countless leaders speaking on behalf of human rights, including former President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond TuTu.

Our activism has already put the U.S. Supreme Court and Georgia officials on the fence. Now we've got to do all we can these next couple of months to guarantee justice for Troy Davis!

Freedom Watch

FREEDOM WATCH is information pertaining to government abuse of power, trashing of the Constitution, illegal immigration, 2nd Amendment, political correctness run amok, etc.It is FREE and sent to you via E-mail.To subscribe send an e-mail to: FreedomWatch-subscribe@topica.com

"Too much work [was] left undone. After a few sleepless nights, I
wrote for myself a list of issues on which I needed to do more in the
years ahead. One of those issues was global regulation of small arms."
-- Harold Hongju Koh (2001)

Friday, June 26, 2009

Imagine that. The Senate confirmed this week, by a vote of 62-35, a
gun banner who stays up at night thinking of ways to impose more gun
control upon American citizens.

Harold Koh is that gun grabber, and he was confirmed yesterday to be
the Legal Adviser at the State Department.

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans attempted to kill the Koh
nomination with a filibuster -- until eight of them crossed the aisle to
help Democrats confirm Koh.

Once the filibuster was thwarted, Koh's nomination passed easily.
The vote on final passage can be viewed at: http://tinyurl.com/m4m2f5

Koh is eager to assume his post at the State Department, having
lamented that there is only so much that can be done from the outside to push
gun control treaties, and that ultimately we need people like him
in positions of power. The chief lawyer for the State Department is
just the position someone like him needs to push more gun control
through international treaties.

GOA will continue watching for any attempt by the Obama
administration to foist an international gun control treaty upon the citizens
of the U.S.

Please stay tuned.

Don't Let Your Senators Escape the Heat of the Spotlight!

If you have been watching the news, you have no doubt seen stories
on the health care debate. This is the topic de jour on Capitol Hill,
and Congress is ramping up to vote on a bill in a few weeks.

Last week, GOA alerted you to the fact that the whole health care
issue has become a Trojan Horse for gun control, among other things.

However, there are detractors who claim that the current health
care debate will have nothing to do with guns. For example, GOA has
been "informed" that a search of the TeddyCare bill does not turn up the
word "guns," and that the word "database" is seen only a few times.

Hmm, if your Senator's office gives you that as a response, then
tell them not to be so lazy and naive.

One needs to do more than type in a word search in order to
analyze legislation. The database was set up under section 3001(c)(3)(i) of
the stimulus bill. But the Kennedy bill allows for sweeping
new regulations, which make it potentially impossible for any doctor
to refuse to enter your records under the current section 13112
exemption.

Many things you tell your doctor in the privacy of his office
could affect your right to own a firearm. And just because anti-gun zealot
Ted Kennedy doesn't notify us up front of his anti-gun intentions
doesn'tmean they don't exist.

Frankly, we got this same garbage in connection with the
Veterans Disarmament Act (officially known as the NICS Improvement Act),
where the anti-gunners took away the guns of 150,000 veterans through
language which was not explicit. Before the bill was signed into law
last year, some detractors even claimed that because the NICS bill did not
mention the word "veterans," we must have been wrong to suggest that the
bill would disarm vets!

Well, guess what? The disarmament which was already occurring
before President Bush signed the legislation into law last year is
now occurring with a vengeance under the Obama administration. (In
fact, GOA members should be looking for an upcoming mailing which will
give you postcards to send in support of an important bill -- introduced
by Sen. Burr of North Carolina -- which will protect veterans from
the fangs of the Veterans Disarmament Act.)

The point is, no Senate staffer should ever give you an opinion on
a bill unless he has read the entire code that the bill will be
amending. Nor should they ignore the potential for an Obama administration
toabuse any particular piece of legislation.

Remember how the RICO Act, originally enacted to help combat the
Mafia, was later used to crack down on legitimate banks and peaceful
pro-life protesters? The original RICO Act never used the word "abortion," but that didn't stop overzealous prosecutors from going after
the non-violent protestors.

And who would have thought, when the original Brady law was passed
in 1993, that it would be used to keep people with outstanding
traffic tickets... or couples with marriage problems... or military vets
with nightmares from buying guns? After all, the Brady law never
mentioned those people groups, and yet the law has been used over the past
15-plus years to deny gun rights to those very people.

Reading legislation is not a job for the timid or the lazy. If
staffers in your Senate offices aren't willing to read current bills IN THE
LIGHT OF EXISTING LAWS -- and to do the research necessary to compile
thisinformation -- then politely encourage them to get another line of
work.

***********************

GOA Applauds Call to Action on Judge Sotomayor from NRA's Past
President

Gun Owners of America applauds immediate past NRA President
Sandy Froman, who stepped up to the plate last week with a call to arms
for all NRA members to vigorously oppose the nomination of Judge
Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. (See the article below).

GOA has been calling on our members to oppose this nomination since
it is clear that Sotomayor is anti-Second Amendment and wants to
legislate from the bench.

The official position from current NRA leadership is to take a "wait
and see" approach to the Sotomayor nomination which may well allow her
to wiggle through and be confirmed.

GOA calls on all pro-gunners across America to urge NRA leadership
to join in this critical fight to protect the Constitution --
and especially our gun rights.

-- GOA Vice-Chairman Tim Macy

----------------------------------------

NRA Members Must Oppose Sotomayorby Sandy Froman

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's first nominee to
the U.S. Supreme Court, has a narrow view of the Second Amendment
that contradicts the Court's landmark decision in District of Columbia
v. Heller. A heated debate has started in the U.S. Senate over
her opposition to the right to keep and bear arms. This issue, which
has decided the fate of presidential elections, could also decide
her nomination. Gun owners, and especially the members of the National
Rifle Association, must aggressively oppose Judge Sotomayor's confirmation
to the Supreme Court.

On June 24, senators began speaking on the floor of the
Senate expressing grave concerns over Judge Sotomayor's Second
Amendment record. Senator Jeff Sessions R-AL, the Ranking Member of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, pointed out that although her record on the
issue is "fairly scant," she has twice stated that the Second Amendment
is not a fundamental right. Senator Sessions also noted that in
Second Amendment and other constitutional cases, Sotomayor's analysis
of important constitutional issues has been lacking suggesting "a
troubling tendency to avoid or casually dismiss difficult Constitutional
issues of exceptional importance." Sotomayor's view on the Second
Amendment clearly reflects an extreme anti-gun philosophy, and some
Democrat senators from pro-gun states are justifiably nervous.

Last year, the Supreme Court held in Heller that the Second
Amendment guarantees the right of individual Americans to keep and bear
firearms. But that ruling was a fiercely-contested, 5-4 split decision.
Justice Kennedy joined the four conservatives on the Court to make the
majority, with the four liberal justices writing passionate dissents about
how the Second Amendment does not apply to private citizens.

Bluntly speaking, the Second Amendment survived by a single vote.
Had one justice voted differently, the Second Amendment would have
been erased from the Bill of Rights forever. Today in the Supreme Court,
the right to bear arms hangs by a single vote.

The next question the Supreme Court will decide is whether the
Second Amendment is a "fundamental right" that applies to cities and states, thus preventing them from restricting gun rights. Even the
liberalNinth Circuit Court of Appeals held earlier this year in Nordyke v.
King that the Second Amendment is a fundamental right, yet Judge
Sotomayor disagrees.

When Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court,
it belied his flowery rhetoric about respecting our constitutional
gun rights. Out of almost 200 federal appeals judges in this country,
Judge Sotomayor is one of only six to weigh in (after the Heller case) to
hold that the Second Amendment only limits federal actions. If your state
or city chooses to ban all guns or take away the ones that you already
have in your home for hunting and self-defense, Sonia Sotomayor says
theConstitution can't help you.

This position becomes all the more radical when it's revealed how
she reached this conclusion. Only six judges have denied gun rights
against the states. Of these, three did so in a recent Seventh Circuit case,
NRA v. Chicago, writing a detailed opinion that the Second Amendment
doesn't apply to the states because they thought an old 1800s Supreme Court
case tied their hands on the issue, and they commended the case up to
the Supreme Court after long and scholarly consideration. Judge
Sotomayor and two of her liberal colleagues, however, wrote only a
single paragraph on the whole issue when deciding their own New York
case, Maloney v. Cuomo. In one paragraph, she said the Second Amendment
gives people no rights at all when it comes to state or city laws. She gave
no explanation, and made no call for Supreme Court action.

Then we find that this has been a consistent belief for Sotomayor. In
a case before her in 2004, she and her colleagues concluded that there
is no fundamental right in the Second Amendment but provided no
substantive analysis to justify this conclusion. Throughout her career,
Judge Sotomayor's record is one of consistent opposition to the
private ownership of firearms.

America has almost 90 million gun owners who value their rights. And
of these, no one does more to protect the Second Amendment than the
four million members of the National Rifle Association.

I served as an officer of the NRA for nine years, including a
two-year term as president. I saw NRA members turn the tide on Election Day
2000 to defeat Al Gore. We fought again to help defeat John Kerry in 2004.
We can do the same with Sonia Sotomayor, if we call our U.S. Senators
and tell them to vote against this anti-gun judge. No fewer than
fourteen Democrat senators have solid records on the Second Amendment, and
we must urge them to oppose this nominee.

Next year, the Supreme Court is likely to take up NRA v. Chicago,
which will decide whether the Second Amendment applies to states and
cities like it does the federal government. This case is as important
asHeller, and will massively impact gun rights forever.

We already know where Judge Sotomayor stands. It's time to tell
the Senate, "Vote No! on Sonia Sotomayor."

“George III, in execution of the trust confided to him, within his own day,
loaded the inhabitants of Great Britain with debts equal to the whole fee-simple
value of their island, and under the pretext of governing it, has alienated its
whole soil to creditors who could lend money to be lavished on priests,
pensions, plunder and perpetual war. This would not have been so, had the people
retained organized means of acting on their [political] agents. In this example,
then, let us read a lesson for ourselves and not “go and do like-wise.”

“As the doctrine is that a public debt is a public blessing, so they [the
supporters of State debt assumption] think a perpetual one is a perpetual
blessing, and, therefore, wish to make it so large that we can never pay it
off.” (to Nicholas Lewis, 1792)

“That we are bound to defray the expenses of the war within our own time,
and unauthorized to burthen posterity with them, I suppose to have been proved
in my former letter. There have existed nations, and civilized and learned
nations, who have thought that a father had a right to sell his child as a
slave, in perpetuity; that he could alienate his body and industry conjointly,
and a fortiari his industry separately; and consume the fruits himself. A
nation asserting this fratricide right might well suppose they could burthen
with public as well as private debt their [children and future
generations].

We acknowledge that our children are born free; that their freedom is the
gift of nature, and not of him who begot them…so when adult is sui juris,
entitled himself to the use of his own limbs and fruits of his own
exertions...we believe [that to] oblige them to pay for all the enterprises,
just or unjust, profitable or ruinous, into which our vices, our passions, or
our personal interests may lead us. But I trust that this proposition
needs only to be looked at by an American to be seen in its true point of view,
and that we shall consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our
debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves; and consequently within what may
be deemed the period of a generation, or the life of the majority.

We must raise, then, ourselves the money for this war, either by taxes
within the year, or by loans; and if by loans, we must repay them ourselves,
proscribing forever the English practice of perpetual funding; the ruinous
consequences of which, putting right out of the question, should be a sufficient
warning to a considerate nation to avoid the example.” (to J.W. Eppes, September
1813)

"Here they go again -- our faithful representatives in Washington, that is.
They're about to pass, without reading its 1,200-plus pages, an incredibly
expensive and destructive cap and trade bill, which has little prayer of
accomplishing what it sets out to accomplish but satisfies their urgent need to
pay homage to their liberal ideology and secular humanist worldview."

- Columnist David Limbaugh

***********************

"Since the Constitution doesn’t forbid the states to secede, the North
found it necessary to violate the Constitution in order to suppress Southern
independence. Lincoln was forced to usurp legislative powers by raising troops
and money and by suspending the writ of habeas corpus; when Chief Justice Roger
Taney ruled such acts unconstitutional, Lincoln wrote an order for Taney’s
arrest! He never followed through on that, but he did illegally arrest 31
antiwar members of the Maryland legislature and install a puppet government. He
went on to crush freedom of speech and press throughout the North. Such was
Lincoln’s idea of 'preserving the Constitution' and 'government of the people,
by the people, for the people.'"

Judge Andrew Napolitano lays bare the twisted legal history of
racism in America.

"All men are created equal and endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights" wedded the American soul to the concept
that freedom comes from our humanity, not from the government. But American
governments legally suspended the free will of blacks for 150 years, and then
denied blacks equal protection of the law for another 150 years. How did this
happen in America, how were the Constitution and laws of the land twisted so as
to institutionalize racism, and how did it or will it end? In a refreshingly
candid book, Dred Scott's Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom In
America, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano takes a no-holds-barred look at the role of
the government in the denial of freedoms based on race.

The Revolution Continues

Out of Ron Paul's 2008 Presidential Campaign has come a group of liberty-minded patriots who are now running for public office.

June 30, 2009 will end the quarterly filing period for these
candidates. Raising money in politics has two purposes: the most
obvious is you need the money to campaign but the second, sometimes
less obvious reason, is to send a message.

Please support the candidates that are fighting for liberty, freedom and prosperity.

Restore the Republic (RTR): You really need to see this!

Some people had trouble viewing it because it would stop every 10
seconds. It does this because the video is loading while you're
watching it. In order to avoid this let the video load more before
watching. You can do this by clicking the pause button in the lower
left had side of the video player after it has begun playing... after a
minute click the pause/play button again... and enjoy the show!

The other thing I needed to remind you about was that if you are
attending a Tea Party this July 4th and you want to have Republic
Magazines in hand to educate and inspire those in attendance you need
to get your order in no later than tomorrow night.

The State of Florida has dropped it’s appeal of Federal Court Judge Stephen
Mickle’s ruling that struck down the electioneering statutes in the State of
Florida as a violation of an individual’s First Amendment right to unfettered
free speech.

The case, Broward Coalition, et al vs. Browning was brought by the
Institute for Justice against the state last October.

The State of Florida dropped their appeal last week when they declined to
appeal Judge Mickle’s ruling to the Federal District Court of Appeal in
Atlanta. Judge Mickle’s ruling strikes the entire electioneering
communications statute and now allows individuals and organizations to speak
freely about political issues and candidates.

Specially mentioned in the Judge’s ruling was the statute that State Attorney
Lawson L. Lamar used to prosecute anti-tax activist Doug Guetzloe in 2006.
Guetzloe is the only person criminally prosecuted for first amendment free
speech under this statute. Lamar spent nearly a year “investigating”
Guetzloe, eventually obtaining all this personal and business bank records and
illegally releasing those to the media even though they had nothing to do with
the investigation. Lamar then charged Guetzloe with 14 misdemeanor counts
and asked the court to find Guetzloe guilty and sentence him to 14 years in
prison for not placing a “paid political advertisement” disclaimer on a campaign
flyer.

Judge Jeffrey Arnold, a Lamar ally, then sentenced Guetzloe to 60 days in
“work release”; $8,500 fine and 3 years of probation. During appeals, the
5th District Court of Appeal struck down the absurd sentence and fines and
maintained one misdemeanor count for re-sentencing. Since that time, Judge
Mickle enjoined the state from enforcing the law and in a final ruling threw out
the entire law.

“Judge Mickle is a hero to the people. He got it right. The State
of Florida has no right to use election laws to silence the people in their free
expression of political ideas and candidates. This is great day for
Florida and a great day for America,” stated Guetzloe, Chairman of the anti-tax,
grassroots organization, Ax the Tax. Guetzloe is also the Host of The
Guetzloe Report, a news-talk radio show broadcast every weekday from
11-noon on WEUS AM 810.

What does this ruling mean? For that we asked Doug this evening

Guetzloe has spent in excess of $100,000 defending himself from the vicious
political persecution of State Attorney Lamar. The Guetzloe case has
attracted the support of many national conservative organizations that include:
Townhall.com; Sam Adams Alliance; Center for Competitive Politics; Citizens in
Charge Foundation; NewsMax.com and others.

Guetzloe’s attorney, Fred O’Neal was also very pleased with the ruling and
noted that the case law that Judge Mickle used in his ruling was the case law
that was provided to State Attorney Lamar’s office when they began their bogus
investigation of Guetzloe.

State Sen. Charlie Justice, D-St. Petersburg, issued a statement criticizing
Secretary of State Kurt Browning’s refusal to appeal, saying it “will
essentially allow shadow organizations to funnel millions of dollars to
political campaigns without regulation or disclosure.”

Justice’s legislative aide, Bethany Linderman, said he was looking at all his
options including new legislation.

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian legal organization based in
Arlington, Va., challenged the law on behalf of four nonprofit groups and their
leaders

Institute lawyer Bert Gall said Browning’s decision was an acknowledgment
that U.S. District Judge Stephan Mickle ruled correctly. Mickle wrote that the
Legislature has the power to regulate elections but not “purely political
discussions about elections.”

“In America, the right to free speech means that the government cannot make
it harder for some groups to speak because it doesn’t like what they have to
say,” Gall said.

He said Mickle’s ruling is part of a growing body of case law questioning
regulations such as Florida’s that have flourished since the U.S. Supreme Court
upheld the federal McCain-Feingold law, the popular name for 2002 revisions to
the nation’s campaign finance law.

Gall sued on behalf of the Broward Coalition of Condominiums, Homeowners
Associations and Community Organizations; University of Florida College
Libertarians; National Taxpayers Union and national Taxpayers Union
Foundation.

Mickle granted a preliminary injunction in October that prevented the law
from being enforced and then issued a final ruling in May.

Freedom Watch

FREEDOM WATCH is information pertaining to government abuse of power, trashing of the Constitution, illegal immigration, 2nd Amendment, political correctness run amok, etc.It is FREE and sent to you via E-mail.To subscribe send an e-mail to: FreedomWatch-subscribe@topica.com

"[This water bill is the] biggest bureaucratic power grab
in a
generation."
--Senator James InhofeUPDATED June 25, 2009: The Senate Environment and
Public Works Committee approved the Clean Water Restoration Act (S. 787) by a
vote of 12-7 on June 18, 2009. As described below, this bill would place
virtually all the waters of the United States under federal control.
U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) is a ranking member of the Environment and
Public Works Committee and has recently issued a warning against the passage of
S. 787. The legislation is the "biggest bureaucratic power grab in a
generation," Inhofe said. (To view Sen. Inhofe's remarks, click
here.)

The committee vote was a strictly partisan vote as Democrats
voted FOR the bill while Republicans voted AGAINST it. The list of names may be
found by clicking
here.

Since Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) moved to put a hold on S. 787,
it cannot be voted on until at least 60 Senators vote to remove the hold. This
adds an additional step to the process so the bill can't be rushed through.
Hopefully this will force more Senators to read the bill and gain even more
opposition to its passage.

Please read the comments below and then send an
e-mail to your Senators requesting that they reject this bill.

Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) introduced S. 787 on April
2, 2009. The bill, known as the Clean Water Restoration Act, would redefine the
government’s control over water. The bill is currently in the Senate Committee
on Environment and Public Works and already carries 24 cosponsors.

Among
other things, S. 787 would amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act
(enacted in 1972) by striking the term “navigable waters” from the bill and
replacing it with “waters of the United States.”

What does that mean to
you? Simply put, it would federalize basically every water deposit within the
United States and place restrictions on landowners.

The John Birch
Society opposes this bill because it would federalize virtually every water
deposit in the nation and therefore threaten both private property rights and
states' rights.

When a sitting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court validates a corrupt and
fraudulent election in a State overrun by government troops, it is clear that a
republican form of government as guaranteed by the United States Constitution
was at an end. Though Chase was purportedly in Florida to survey the condition
of the courts, he was really there to ensure that the freedmen and others were
properly instructed and scripted on how to vote after his candidacy was
announced. In the Radical Republican vernacular, “patronage” meant bought votes.

“The “new state of things” to which [a Tallahassee editor] referred was
beginning to be realized in Florida as Chief Justice [Salmon P.] Chase was
welcomed in Fernandina the latter part of May, 1865 by a “thunderous volume of
song” from former slaves. The correspondent of a New York newspaper described
the visit as the “most notable sensation of this isolated place for some time
past” and reported that the Chief Justice “in the course of his judicial
pilgrimage, took occasion to call upon all his political representatives sent
out under patronage of the Treasury.”

The correspondent further reported that a Mr. Mot, “an intelligent French
gentleman, formerly a tutor in Mr. Chase’s family in Ohio, and who came here
last Fall as the Clerk of the Tax Commission, at a municipal election, held
without law and in disregard of the provisions of the act of incorporation, had
been elected “Mayor of the City of Fernandina.” The Chief Justice was invited to
formally install him in office, and with great pomp the ceremony was performed,
and Fernandina has now a city government recognized by the highest judicial
officer in the land, though its head is not a citizen of the State and his
election has no shadow of legal authority.

Chase wrote to President Johnson that before Mot was elected a vote was
taken to decide whether the Negroes should participate in the election; inasmuch
as the vote was favorable, the Negroes did participate in the municipal
election. Chase, therefore, “had the honor of administering the oath of office
of the first Mayor of Fernandina under the new regime,” he further reported. “So
you see,” he concluded, “that colored suffrage is practically accepted in
Florida---or rather that part of it included in Amelia Island.”

The Chief Justice made some amazing “discoveries” of intelligence among the
ex-slaves neither previously nor since known to the human race, and on this
visit to the South wrote optimistically of the future of the freedmen. These
“discoveries” were of course presented for political consumption. Although the
announced purpose of Chase’s trip was to survey conditions and restore the
courts, it was not so interpreted by James Gordon Bennett, editor of the New
York Herald, who said “his tour….was only part of a grand scheme for the
promulgation of ideas which he and his associates imagined would place him in
the presidential chair at the close of Mr. Johnson’s term.”

Harrison Reed, later Republican governor of Florida, had been privately
informed, he reported to Washington, that Chief Justice Chase “had made sure of
all the patronage necessary to control the State, including the Military
Governor.”

"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring
one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own
pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor
the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."

Debra Medina, who has served as the C4L Texas coordinator has a growing
campaign to be the next governor of Texas. This campaign will have
national implications, please visit http://www.MedinaForTexas.com to learn more and donate.